


take my hand (wreck my plans)

by Ceara_Einin



Series: Saving What We Love - 2020 [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Lives, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hands, Kylo Ren Redemption, POV Ben Solo, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Redeemed Ben Solo, Self-Reflection, Soft Ben Solo, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, all the times Kylo Ren reached out, and all the times Ben did, twice Rey did, we don't claim the TROS ending here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceara_Einin/pseuds/Ceara_Einin
Summary: All the times Kylo Ren reached out to Rey, the two times Rey reached out to Ben, and the first of many times Ben reached back.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Saving What We Love - 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057262
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	take my hand (wreck my plans)

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 of #SavingWhatWeLove 2020  
> Prompt: Hands Are A Language

The first time he reached out to her, he was Kylo Ren chasing a droid and a map to Luke Skywalker. He’d told himself she was a means to an end. His hand and the Force he commanded sought information, and he would have it. (Even then, he was a terrible liar. Especially to himself.) He’d been right when he said they had what they needed. _He_ had everything he needed. Ben wishes he’d known then that he could have left it all behind for her and the galaxy would be a better place.

The second time, Rey was strapped to an interrogation chair and he flipped through her thoughts like the pages of his old calligraphy book. He wanted a map, but he found something else.

He found a lonely girl longing for family, for a life she didn’t have to be alone. He found a girl made strong by the desert, a girl so much stronger than even she knew. He found an equal.

The third time, he offered to teach her the way to the Force in the flashing heat of their lightsabers. The one true way, the only way he thought was worth the sacrifices. (It wasn’t; he knows that now. He wishes he’d known then. He wishes he’d taken those whisperings of Light that no darkness could break and swept them into cleansing fire. He wishes he’d been Ben again when he met her.)

The fourth time, he held out his hand and ordered her to bring Luke Skywalker to him, even though she’d never bowed to his will before. He’d wondered then, with his mouth twisted in annoyance, if her will would always be the stronger against his. (If only he’d known that will and bowing had nothing to do with it. If only he’d known, then, that they were two halves of a whole. One soul in two bodies, or perhaps two twin stars. Perhaps they were mirrors, refracting each other back and forth until the echo between them sounded the same.)

Then Rey reached out and _everything_ changed. His world shifted, narrowed to the pinpoint of warmth where their skin met, just a brush of fingers and souls yearning for their other half. (He realized later that skin is their best language. He’s most himself when their skin meets, whether by hands or by the slow, desperate slide of their bodies.) Rey held her hand out to him by firelight, eyes glassy with the lesson of the cave. (Later, much later, Ben told her that yes, she’d felt alone, but maybe the cave was also trying to tell her she was enough, she was whole without her parents no matter what they’d done to her.) And Ben had stripped off his glove and trembled as he reached across the divide of a galaxy and all their misunderstandings.

For the first time in a long time, Ben remembered Kylo Ren wasn’t the whole of who he was.

“You’re not alone,” she’d said. He believed her.

“Neither are you,” he’d said. Her past flashed through his mind, and their future flashed through hers, and whatever she saw convinced her. Rey looked at him like she believed him, too.

But he wasn’t done making mistakes, not even then. The fifth time, he reached out asking her to rule the galaxy with him. Let all the past die, he’d asked, and make something new with me. He held out a gloved hand, and she left. He’d tried to hate her for that.

Rey had every reason to kill him. She _didn’t_. He woke with his own lightsaber strapped to his belt and the two halves of the Skywalker saber gone with her.

The sixth time, they met in the blue light of a hanger bay on the _Steadfast_. He thought she’d take his hand. They were a dyad, and he knew she yearned for her other half just as much as he did. It would have been simpler, perhaps, if they’d made their way to Exegol together after that, hand in hand, Light and Dark united to deal with Palpatine.

Again, Rey left. He didn’t try to stop her, though maybe if he’d tried he could have stalled out the _Falcon_ , held it close enough he could follow her. Ben wonders if he could have deserted even then, could have jumped off the _Steadfast_ and started over as Ben.

He followed her to Kef Bir, to the ruins of the second _Death Star_. There, she reached out to him a second time. She struck to kill, and then she healed the wound she left.

They both felt his mother die. Leia, gone before he could return to her. Before he could _apologize_ , before he could try to start making things right again. In that moment, Ben hadn’t cared what happened to him anymore. The last person who loved him was _gone_.

Then Rey healed him. “I did want to take your hand,” she said. “Ben’s hand.”

He’d realized then that perhaps there was still one person left who loved him. Someone he loved too. (Later, he realizes Chewie still loves him too, as little as he expected it.)

He raced to Exegol as Ben, fought the Knights he used to lead with the Skywalker lightsaber in his hand.

Then.

_Then._

Ben found her fighting Palpatine’s red guards. Rey moved with the graceful ferocity she always did, all smooth spins of her saber, powerful legs, and bared teeth. He fell more in love with her every time her saw her fighting, if he thinks about it. If he remembers the surety her strength gave him as they fought Snoke’s guards in the throne room of the _Supremacy_.

Rey’s eyes shone as she looked at him, alight with the same relief and joy when the bond opened and she saw he came for her. He reached out with Ben’s hand, at last. She took it in the brief moment before they spun to face Palpatine together.

The first of many, thank the Force. Together they defeated Palpatine, stripped his (his clone’s? Who knew, really) connection to the Force and let him disintegrate into nothing. Together they faced the Sith Eternal, who didn’t put up much of a fight with their Emperor gone. Some are willing to make a new path with them, something neither he nor Rey know much of but something better than simple Light and Dark. There’s strength in both.

And later, when they’ve stolen away to Naboo and said vows with a shimmering lake before them and a golden sun behind them, Ben offers her his hand for all eternity.

And there, at last, Rey takes it.


End file.
